A conventional data processing network comprises a plurality of host computer systems and a plurality of attached devices all interconnected by an intervening network architecture such as an Ethernet architecture. The network architecture typically comprises one or more data communications switches. The host computer systems and the attached devices each form a node in the data processing network. Each host computer system typically comprises a plurality of central processing units and data storage memory device interconnected by a bus architecture such as a PCI bus architecture. A network adapter is also connected to the bus architecture for communicating data between the host computer system and other nodes in the data processing network via the network architecture. It would be desirable for transfer of data and control information between the host computer system and the network architecture to be facilitated as efficiently as possible.